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Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The main purpose of having a mobile app for your business is to drive traffic to your store. One way you can certainly drive traffic to your store is communicating with your customers. Grand Apps offers businesses a chance to communicate to customers with mobile technologies. We offer mobile apps built for businesses that allow them to send out unlimited push notification messages that can send pictures, words and links. Our robust push notification system is the way of the future. We have built in GEO Fencing push messages that allow you to specifically target consumers at particular locations, allowing you to personalize messages for them.

For example, you can setup a fence around a golf course and schedule a message for app users saying "You know what goes great with golfing? A nice cold beer from our restaurant".

Let's say you're not selling beer, that's okay. Maybe you're a fitness center. You can setup a fence around a GNC or Supplement store saying "This is the best supplement to buy, get this".

We found that clients who are frequently using the push messages, especially the GEO Fence technologies are finding about a 26% better app open rate than those not using it. If you are not frequently using your app or sending customers messages, you have stopped the conversation. When you stop talking to your customers they soon forget about you. If they forget about you, your bottom line will suffer.

Don't hurt your bottom line & get chatting with your customers today. If you are a Grand Apps client, send out a push note. If you are curious how you can implement this, give us a call or email.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Recently, Dan Levy, Facebook's director of small business spoke at Facebook Fit about small businesses and Facebook marketing. Currently there are 30 million small businesses with active pages, up 25 million from last year. Facebook is a great way to interact with customers, post useful live information and another great form of digital marketing.

But recently Facebook has gotten a lot of flack due to the fact your posts are reaching smaller and smaller percentages of people. A few years ago you could post and reach majority of your following, now you're lucky if you reach half of them on organic posts.

We wanted to touch on a few benefits of launching your businesses own mobile app over solely relying on your Facebook page to increase foot traffic.

Customer Interaction
Interacting with customers is a great way to build loyalty with consumers. It let's them know you hear them and listen. As we mentioned before, it is becoming increasingly harder to interact with customers on Facebook if they cannot see you.

The benefit of building your businesses mobile app will help you interact with customers. The Grand Apps mobile app platform has a built in fan wall, just like a Facebook wall, where users can interact with your business, ask questions and get answers. As the business owner, you can also login and send out Push Notifications to all app users. This acts as a direct message to the app users which helps you bypass missed messages if you would have just posted that message to your timeline.

Less Competition
Think about the average consumer with 500+ friends and 100+ likes on their Facebook page. Now think about all of your competitors posting information and competing for viewing space on their timeline. Unless you pay for your posts, it's likely you'll be sent to the bottom and missed by hundreds of followers. The competition is very high on Facebook to market your information to the consumers.

A consumers mobile smartphone on the other hand will likely not have 600+ apps downloaded, maybe 50+ max. This means by them having your mobile app on their device, you are only competing with a handful of apps, not thousands of other businesses they like on their Facebook page.

But Facebook is free
In economics there is a term, TANSTAFL, There Ain't No Such Thing As Free Lunch. Some business owners might argue that spending money on a mobile app is not necessarily the best investment because Facebook is free. Indeed it is "free" of charge, it still requires your time, more than managing a mobile app. Calculating your hours worth of work would be step one. Let's say you're worth $200 per hour and you post on Facebook / market on this social media outlet about 1.5 hours per week. That means you spend $300 per week, because if you had that time free you could be growing your business in other areas.

No matter how you look at it, you will spend time on Facebook interacting with customers, so in reality it is not free because it costs your time.

Summary

Traditional approaches to marketing your business is a must and they still work. Facebook still works too, but we just wanted to show you that a mobile app holds more benefits over the Facebook page in regards to competition, time and customer interaction. Our mobile apps have a whole host of other amazing features that would really help out your business too!

If you are curious how to get started, just request a demo app and we would love to chat with you how these apps can take your business to the next level.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

A huge benefit of creating an app for your business is to use it as a promotional engagement tool between your customers and your business. There are tons of ways to promote your business, without mobile, like coupons, flyers and other offers. Many businesses offer customers promotions and discounts to keep them coming back to their store. Our mobile apps provide powerful coupon and loyalty features that every business could benefit from.

How to get started.

Well first, it is a must you visit Grand Apps and checkout our full suite of app features, including mobile app coupons. We will get your app setup in just weeks and even help you launch it!

Tips for mobile coupons.

We recommend offering your customers at least some type of offer for even downloading your app. This incentive can be simple as "show us your app at the counter for 10% off". You can make the offer as small or large as you want, and if you are already doing some type of other coupons, our questions is WHY NOT offer mobile coupons? You can send out messages to them every single time you have an app offer! This is very beneficial for businesses and communicating to their customers about specials and promotions.

Another great recommendation is making that coupon limited time only so they have to utilize it. As a business owner offering coupons, you most certainly understand the limited time only reasons for offering these coupons. The main goal is to drive traffic during your slow times. A mobile coupon is a perfect way to get people coming in during the slow periods with limited time only coupons. Your customers all have their phone in their pockets 24/7, you can now use your app to reach out to them and get them in the door.

Every business should have a marketing plan. Better yet, every business should begin incorporating some type of mobile marketing plan in 2014.

So a recent feature update we just completed was GEO Fencing Push Notifications. This sounds like a mouth full, but really it means exactly what the title says. You can target customers based on their GEO location and when they enter an area you fenced off, they will receive a message. (They can receive your mobile app coupon offer)

Let's say they're strolling by your businesses and they have your app downloaded on their phone. If they come within the fence, they will receive a message that you scheduled weeks ago. Now they get that message, think about you and then stop in your business for that limited time only offer.

Contact Us

So if you are curious about the new technologies and mobile app coupons, just email our support team to setup a time to chat.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Mobile is big business and can help increase your real estate business.
About one-fifth of real estate searches are done on mobile devices and smartphones. Over the past few years, mobile searching activity for property has increased year by year. Within the next few years, mobile searches are projected to overtake desktop searches.

What this means for your business.
This means that you must form some type of mobile marketing strategy because soon the majority of your clients will searching for you via mobile devices. We also noticed this industry tends to be a slow mover into technology so if you get in now, you'll be way ahead of late moving competition. Get to the mobile party earlier than later.

There are huge benefits in going mobile!
The number of benefits in going mobile are countless, but here are a few to name some. Number one; having some type of mobile optimized web page or mobile app will be key in providing a great user experience for customers looking to buy. Nobody wants to browse a mobile app or website on their smartphone only to find out they must pinch and zoom to get information. Having an optimized website or app will provide a better customer experiencing, helping build your brand. Number two; when you develop a mobile app, you are developing the most powerful communication marketing tool we have today. You can send out property information to app users via Push Notifications. We also have custom push note feature built into our platform that allows you to fence areas around a house and when app users enter, they will receive information about that property. Read this article for more information about geo fencing technologies and push notifications.

Offer something NOBODY else offers.
Again, as we just mentioned...the Real Estate market seems to be a slow mover in technology. Real estate agents don't be offended, this notion actually came from a recent client of ours. He understood the power of going mobile before anybody else in the market. He looked around and found no other agent was offering a mobile experience quite like his. So you want to make sure you are early to the party and launch your mobile app before anybody else. There is going to be a learning period when you are telling your clients about the app, getting them to download it and fully use it, so it is key you start sooner than later.

Still not sure about apps & your real estate business?
Well just get in touch with Grand Apps and we will be happy to walk you through an app demo, more statistics & benefits of a mobile app. Visit our website today, like us on Facebook or just email us at support@grandapps.com. We would love to show you the power of mobile!

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Congratulations! Your business has finally decided to go mobile and implement a mobile app into your digital marketing for 2014. But you might be faced with some questions about starting out, which is why we have you covered.

Many businesses out there are finally catching on about mobile apps and the effectiveness of their use. They are not simply a glorified mobile website, but rather a problem solving money making machine when used right. What you must take into consideration when starting out with your businesses mobile app is beginning to think like the app user. You want to build the app with features that are both useful and helpful solving daily problems.

Useful Features

But what are these useful features? Well, that would depend on the industry you're in. But for example, restaurants would greatly benefit from mobile ordering as it allows app users to order food in minutes from their device. This saves the restaurant time and money because it keeps employees off of the phone and reduces order error because the end user is placing the order. If you are a hair salon, possibly introducing a mobile app scheduling service to clients would allow them to book on the fly. If you run a hotel, think about adding a room service app ordering feature.

There are tons of ways apps can be useful, but when building yours for your business just keep in mind the end user during this process. What would you like in your app if you were the customer?

Did you know Grand Apps actually offers all of the features we mentioned above. Give us a call today and let us brainstorm with you the industry your in and the features that can help.

Engagement

You also want the app to be filled with engaging opportunities that harness social media sharing. We are all witnessing the power of social media sharing right before our eyes. It is the modern day word of mouth marketing for your business. When people share something with their friends, they are recommending those close family and friends to try your business out. Our apps are packed with social sharing opportunities and your businesses app should be too!

Another amazing engagement feature we found useful for businesses was the integration of push notifications. We allow our clients to send out unlimited push messages to app users. You can inform app users about specials, services and even holiday messages. Push notes beat SMS marketing any day of the week! It's hard enough to get people to 'opt-in' to your SMS plan because they know they will be getting coupons & specials. Some people just get annoyed with these. But push notifications are more than plain messages. You can add useful content like links, pictures and even link to your app.

Takeaway

When you decide to build your businesses mobile app, make sure you are packing it with tons of useful features that will engage customers to keep them coming back! Again, we offer a full mobile app marketing suite that is packed with features like this. Feel free to give us a ring or shoot us an email at support@grandapps.com

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Facebook has just launched a new feature on their message app, unlimited calling. You can now use WiFi to chat on the phone with your friends. This is a huge feature upgrade to their message app and a great idea. Lookout Spring, Verizon, AT&T & T Mobile...Facebook is knocking at your door. With an increase in WiFi and internet everywhere, technologies like this are becoming easier and easier to integrate.

Also on a side note, maybe the purchase of WhatsApp had something to do with this? Overall, great work and upgrade on Facebook for integrating this feature!

It's time to get plugged in & stop resisting change.
Many times we often hear entrepreneurs & business owners say statements like "I hate technology" or "I don't need to upgrade, I'm fine with where I'm at". Maybe your target market are all older and the likely chance of them using an iPhone is low, but reality is that times change and so do markets. It is better to get plugged in now, adapt & learn before it's too late. As a business owner you should always strive for continual growth for your business in every way possible and yes technology is one of those areas.

So for all of you resistant business owners out there, we just wanted to show you that adapting to mobile technologies is a must and pain free.

Begin with a Smartphone
The reason many business owners do not see value in a mobile app for their business is because they simply do not have a smartphone device. They do not use apps and it seems as a foreign language to them. But reality is, tons of people are using mobile phones & apps. 91% of Americans use cell phones and the number of people switching to smartphones is exponentially growing year by year. Currently, 34% of Americans go online primarily using their smartphone. This is amazing! Just a few years ago you could only access the web from a desktop or laptop computer. Now people use their mobile device over the other devices.

Start by buying yourself a smartphone, downloading apps & seeing the value. These apps provide so much value for your life! You can deposit checks from your device, transfer funds, check business analytics and much more. Just think, no more bank trips three of four times per week. Think how much gas you would save! So get mobile & get plugged in.

Next, is your business mobile?
Now that you are familiar with using mobile technologies, you'll find yourself using it almost daily. Checking emails, browsing the web and even catching up on your favorite Netflix series. But it is time to focus efforts on your business. Go to your website on your mobile phone and see if it is optimized or not. By optimized, we mean if you have to pinch and zoom...it's not mobile optimized for customers, leaving a very poor mobile experience that can turn away business.

You might even find it frustrating yourself that you cannot see your web page from your phone. So now it's time to begin your marketing for mobile. We recommend contacting a great company like Grand Apps to help you out or another local web firm to help you out. We suggest planning your steps before beginning. Here is a layout order for your mobile presence.

-New Website
-Mobile Freindly**
-Mobile App for your Business

So if your website is outdated, get a new modern website. After make sure it is responsive or mobile. Then launch your mobile app. Even though we are a little biased when it comes to mobile apps, we still recommend making sure you have a strong mobile presence before the app stage.

Takeaway...people are changing, so should you.
The main takeaway here is that people are changing. They are adopting mobile apps, surfing the web with their smartphone and using for many other things. It's time to stop being resistant to change if you wish to grow your business. Taking small steps (with an open mind) can do wonders for growth. We hope this helped a little and we really hope to see you on the other side, the mobile side. Great success to your business and if you have any questions please email our support team.